WSP09490

• File Number: 7630.125
• Description: Wild and Scenic - Colorado Wilderness Act - 1991
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 7/19/1993
• Author: Unknown
• Title: Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993 - 103 rd Congress - 1 st Session - A Report
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

002G35

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especially in Colorado and other States in the more arid regions of
the Nation. . . . In reporting S. 1029, as amended by the Commit-
tee substitute, the Committee has acted to afford the entire House
of Representatives an opportunity to decide what provisions should
be included regarding the water resources of the wilderness areas
designated by the bill and the rights and responsibilities of the Na-
tional Government with respect to proper management and protec-
tion of those resources."
On September 14, 1992, the House passed S. 1029 with further
revisions, including an express reservation of water with respect to
each wilderness designated by the bill. There followed discussions
between the Chairman and other Members of the Committee and
interested Senators, and on October 8, 1992, the Senate passed a
revised version of the bill that included water-related provisions re-
flecting these discussions; but the house took no further action
prior to sine die adjournment.
Section 8 of H.R. 631 as reported includes water-related provi-
sions like those passed by the Senate in October, 1992. In sum-
mary, its purpose is to provide protection for wilderness similar to
that which would result from implementation of a federal reserved
water right while precluding any effective assertion of such a right.
Its principal effects are-
(1) to limit the jurisdiction otherwise available to a court or
agency' under any Act of Congress (including the so-called
McCarran Amendment, 43 U.S.C. 666, which affords a waiver
of sovereign immunity so as to permit joinder of the United
States in certain State proceedings related to water rights), so
that there could be no consideration of any claim to water or
water rights involving a construction of the bill as effecting a
reservation to the United States of water rights with respect
to lands that the bill designates as wilderness; and
(2) to restrict the ability of any U.S. officer or employee or
any other person to act on behalf of the United States to assert
any: such claim; and
(3) to prevent Federal approval or assistance for new or en-
larged water-related facilities within wilderness areas and to
constrain, partly directly and partly by providing additional
authority for administrative actions, various water-related ac-
tivities that could have an adverse LlJlpact on wilderness re-
sources and values.
It should be noted that the Committee's acceptance of section 8
of H.R. 631 reflects two specific factors: the fact that the lands the
bill designates as wilderness are solely and entirely headwaters
areas, and the interaction between the provisions of section 8 and
the State of Colorado's system for adjudication and administration
of water and water rights. Therefore, the favorable reporting of
H.R. 631 should not be read as indicating that the Committee
would find similar provisions adequate to protect downstream wil-
derness areas or headwaters wilderness areas outside Colorado.

THE COMMITI'EE AMENDMENTS

The Committee adopted a number of amendments, primarily
technical in nature but also including provisions related to nomen-
clature and to use of routes and trains in the Fossil Ridge Recre-